Image: Guy Kawasaki

If ever there was a writer with a book that both creates and finds a new pool of irreverent-minded, work-passion-obsessed entrepreneurs, that’s Guy Kawasaki. Notice, the key word wasn’t "help," but “find.” That’s because his latest book, “Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition” may just be the perfect tool for those who are smart, hard-working, and benevolent-minded enough to not just have a successful business start-up, but perhaps network with a man who has a golden touch.

It’s a bumpy ride, though. So after you get a copy, you might want to Velcro yourself to that office chair.

FINDING THE GOOD IN ENTREPRENEURIAL THRILL-SEEKERS

Kawasaki shakes up business-minded thrill-seekers in the most irreverent ways.

Why? Because, as usual, Kawasaki’s not afraid to shove you onto the roller coaster realities of entrepreneurship with edgy, straight forward, business talk.

Give Kawasaki credit. The hockey-obsessed father of four wore a pink boa for his Twitter avatar for months. He’s going to do and say what he wants. He’s the DIY-punk entrepreneur example for post-modern marketing thinkers.

The man’s got scars from long-fought years in the trenches of marketing and Silicon Valley start-ups. Although he might rather they be from fist-fights at center ice, or doing backflips from learning to skate backwards. Rather, Kawasaki’s grizzled from years of battling through the corporate marketing ranks, through Apple-IBM wars and the hard knocks of working on business projects that, he’s since learned, should all be golden before he touches them.

A contributing columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine, Kawasaki is the director or advisor for several organizations. His golden-touch list includes Garage Venture, FilmLoop, SimplyHired, BitPass, iStockphoto, Reactrix, Tripwire and more.

Image: Guy Kawasaki

Lately, he has been pushing his simple, yet innovative magazine-rack-styled news site Alltop.com (Learn how to use Alltop). Built in part through strategically optimized planning and his vast arsenal of social networking relationships, the site includes topics from education, hockey, to even the bizarre-sounding benevolent topic, “good.”

Don’t be fooled. That’s just culture change or even changing the planet for Kawasaki. He pushes his own brand of benevolence toward a meaningful target audience. He also uses his latest book as a tool to promote the good people can do in the world.

“My audience, at least my target audience, is someone who wants to change the world,” Kawasaki said in an interview with Truxtun Avenue. “Note: I didn't say ‘change their checking account balance.’ I want to help people—indeed I feel I have a moral obligation to help people—make that world a better place. This is important to me because I want to leave a meaningful legacy for my kids.”

THE ‘REALITY CHECK’ FACTOR

Kawasaki, tends to write to the potential start-up crowd aiming for multi-million-dollar product-driven success.

“Reality Check,” due in stores Oct. 30, has insight that can even help Truxtun Avenue, a two-week-old news site. Truxtun Avenue’s irreverent nature, lack of suit-and-tie TV personality, and its unpolished beta launch isn’t what newspaper-minded entrepreneur’s often dream of as the perfect product release.

That’s OK, according to Kawasaki in “Reality Check.” He says that a product should be shipped, then tested. “When your product or service is ‘good enough,’ get it out,” he writes. He adds in the same chapter on the art of innovation, “Don’t worry, be crappy.” And that’s because Kawasaki says the first version of any innovation is seldom perfect.

Such an irreverent mode of thinking not only makes Kawasaki likeable as a person and writer, but instantly gives “Reality Check” the ability to affect every company from the smart neighborhood kid with the lemonade stand thinking, “franchise,” to small businesses and $100-million-hopeful Silicon Valley start-ups.

And what about the reality check factor? Does every businessman need a dose of straight-talk from Kawasaki?

“It’s not strictly necessary to get a reality check from me,” Kawasaki said. “They just need to get it from someone who will cut to the chase and give it to them straight. The bottom line is that I have twenty-five years of scars and other learning opportunities from starting, funding, and advising companies. Why not take advantage of my knowledge and at least make new mistakes?”

Image: Hockey Thugs Awarded "Backwards
Skating Keg Of Glory."

APPLYING ‘REALITY CHECK’ TO REAL WORLD FIBS

“Reality Check” offers a world of marketing knowledge, presented in Kawasaki’s fun shiitake-talking style. He sells you his ideas, along with other experts like Polly LaBarre, who coauthored “Mavericks at Work” with Bill Taylor. His question-and-answer style with such experts helps you understand the real versus the lies that we all get intertwined with in the business world.

Kawasaki uses such examples from experts without waving his fingers at the reader. Yet, he isn’t afraid to say “shiitake” when making a point, or identify and help you deal with corporate assholes by calling them what they are: assholes. But be careful. You might realize you’re one too. There’s help, according to Kawasaki. Get the book and find out.

He also isn’t afraid to suggest the dangers of the real world that could trap hopeful entrepreneurs in their own lies. He admits that when forging partnerships or seeking angel investors or venture capital, the truth gets bent. He is quick to remind readers that any partnership should be about sales and cash flow. In fact, Kawasaki pretty much cuts through the shiitake and describes a world of lies that can often bring a business to a standstill.

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Yet, he seeks to help straighten such crooked approaches and offers a sea of tips and easy-to-use smart thinking. He offers tips on schmoozing, workforce development, email and presentation etiquette, how to deal with engineers, investors, and more...

Smart readers will pay close attention to his clues. They will not only change their ways if they find themselves caught in lies, but put in operation the book’s networking clues on seeking favors from those with the clout, how to use small talk and more...

REAL COMPANIES WHO CAN BENEFIT FROM A REALITY BOOST

IOUNote.com is a social lending upstart about to flip to version 2.0. It was voted as one of the top 18 innovative new companies in Colorado this year and has revenue-stream potential with the ability to take advantage of the latest stressed-out head-banging on Wall Street.

The site has a free zany component. You owe your friend a bucket of chicken or a day at Disneyland. You can register what you owe. You lose a bet on Monday Night Football? Register what you owe. You can keep track of even the most miniscule IOU online.

You owe your two-year-old a college education? Get it online and start that tracking procedure.

Version 2.0 has a revenue model built in that includes lending between social circles. These friend-to-friend circles includes larger amounts than simply you owing your kid a new Star Wars action figure after crushing his last one in the driveway while backing out.

Image: Erika Archer, IOUNote.com

IOUNote is a social lending company that fits the upstart young company that Kawasaki might mold. It definitely fits his target audience.

And why not? It’s in an industry that’s projected to grow from just over $100 million in 2005 to $5.8 billion in 2010 between just a handful of companies. “People are looking to move their lending and borrowing to social circles,” said CoFounder/Director of Operations Erika Archer. “It’s a new kind of personal-lending movement.”

Searching for an angel investor, Archer said, “We definitely need the help as far as the marketing and strategic relationships.”

Advice: Buy Kawasaki’s “Reality Check” from the pre-sale link. This is especially good advice since Archer admitted, “We’ve done the time sleeping under the desk with a phone book as a pillow.”

Just don’t use Kawasaki’s latest book as one.

Tracey Stone, owner of Bakersfield-based MomeConnect, an independent online mommy community, agrees with the harshness of beginning a business. “It’s hard to prioritize when you have other demands that pull you in all different directions and causes you to work at odd hours. "You have to look for your reward."

She said about what it takes to run a small business: "As far as passion, it’s like a fire that burns inside you everyday. You think about it as much as everything else in your life. It gets your butt out of bed.”

While “Reality Check” is helpful and inspiring, it doesn’t make a start-up any easier or someone’s resume any more impressive.

“My one big reality check is, "Don't ask people to do something that you yourself would not do." If people just listened to this, they'd be better entrepreneurs and managers,” Kawasaki said.

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